CREATIVE ARTS INTERVENTION FOR ISOLATED LATINX OLDER ADULTS TO REDUCE TRAUMA SYMPTOMS

Abstract Creative arts is an important form of therapeutic psychotherapy to reduce trauma symptoms in migrant older adults by allowing them to explore what they once connected in their country of origin. This therapeutic modality helps to destigmatize mental health, promote health education, and feel accepted, include social connectiveness with individuals who have suffered similar trauma in their country of origin and have migrated to find a safer living environment. Interventions used have been tailored to Spanish Speaking Older adult immigrant clients that are at higher risk of mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. These clients are often hiding in isolation and feel lonely. The main objective was to reduce anxiety due to re-traumatization of symptoms more importantly during pre/post COVID isolation and multiple stressors the country has been going through. For these individuals, their arts are their livelihoods due to their immigration status. It is imperative to encourage our elderly minority community to continue to focus on their crafts i.e., weaving, embroidery, sewing, crochet, cooking, pottery, or any creative arts they pr. This allows the person to have control, autonomy, feel useful and most importantly have a sense of belonging to their community, in a country that they feel displaced from. It is vital to use arts as an option to help our older adults process their life story to support development theories, in this case, Erik Erikson’s final stage of psychosocial development, integrity vs despair.


PRACTICE AND THEORY: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PARTICIPATING IN CULTURALLY-RELEVANT CRAFTS FOR DIVERSE OLDER ADULTS Chair: Carolyn Adams-Price
In the last 25 years, there has been a great increase in interest in the benefits of creative activities for older adults, especially for dementia patients.More recent research (Adams-Price et al., 2018) has identified specific benefits that healthy older adults get from participating in arts activities.However, little research has featured the benefits of traditional craft activities, especially those prominent in different ethnic groups.The focus of this symposium will be on the benefits of traditional crafts for older adults, especially when those crafts are traditional to one's culture and have benefits for identity.The proposed symposium will include papers by Chen and Alcantar on the impact of craft participation on diverse older adults.Kaori Otera Chen will be discussing older women weavers in New York State, and the psychological growth they experience from learning and practicing skills associated with weaving, and from creating beautiful pieces.Sandy Alcantar will be discussing a program that she runs for older Hispanic immigrants that promotes participation in traditional crafts to provide income and connect the immigrants to their culture of origin.Adams-Price will be discussing life-span developmental psychology and the sociocultural theory of creativity from Vlad Glaveanu, and their implications of the theory for discussing the significance of long-term participating in culturally-relevant crafts in later life, singly and in groups.She will tie in examples from diverse cultures, including older rural African American women who quilt.Although gerontologists have increased their discussions of the benefits of creative activities for older adults, some aspects of late life creativity have been discussed very little.Two aspects of late life creativity that have received little attention include 1) long-term participation in a particular creative domain, resulting in learning and the development of skills, and 2) the participation in culturally-meaningful crafts, especially those that connect people or result in a cultural legacy.Referring to examples from diverse cultures, we will discuss how theories of adult development and theories of creativity can be merged into a framework for studying the significance of participation in culturally-significant crafts for diverse older adults.Erikson's theory of adult development and Glaveanu's sociocultural theory of creativity will be used as a framework to explore the meaning and potential of participation in culturally-significant crafts for positive development in late life.We will discuss how practice leads to learning and mastery, how identity benefits from creating culturally-significant crafts, how creating in groups (or with an audience) leads to greater engagement, and how the creation of sharable products can lead to a meaningful legacy for some older creators.Examples from diverse cultures will be included, including from the two previous papers, and from older rural African American women who quilt.

CREATIVE ARTS INTERVENTION FOR ISOLATED LATINX OLDER ADULTS TO REDUCE TRAUMA SYMPTOMS Sandy Alcantar, Long Beach Mental Health, Long Beach, California, United States
Creative arts is an important form of therapeutic psychotherapy to reduce trauma symptoms in migrant older adults by allowing them to explore what they once connected in their country of origin.This therapeutic modality helps to destigmatize mental health, promote health education, and feel accepted, include social connectiveness with individuals who have suffered similar trauma in their country of origin and have migrated to find a safer living environment.Interventions used have been tailored to Spanish Speaking Older adult immigrant clients that are at higher risk of mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder.These clients are often hiding in isolation and feel lonely.The main objective was to reduce anxiety due to re-traumatization of symptoms more importantly during pre/post COVID isolation and multiple stressors the country has been going through.For these individuals, their arts are their livelihoods due to their immigration status.It is imperative to encourage our elderly minority community to continue to focus on their crafts i.e., weaving, embroidery, sewing, crochet, cooking, pottery, or any creative arts they pr.This allows the person to have control, autonomy, feel useful and most importantly have a sense of belonging to their community, in a country that they feel displaced from.It is vital to use arts as an option to help our older adults process their life story to support development theories, in this case, Erik Erikson's final stage of psychosocial development, integrity vs despair.

SESSION 1140 (PAPER) LIFE EXPERIENCES: A CLOSER LOOK AT TRAUMA AND RESILIENCE
Abstract citation ID: igad104.0142

"CAREGIVING MADE ME GRATEFUL": THE UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS OF DEMENTIA CAREGIVING Jordan Lewis, University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus, Duluth, Minnesota, United States
There is a cultural value among Alaska Natives to care for their Elders and this commitment applies to all Elders, regardless of health status or cognitive health.Caregiver duties can lead to stress, isolation, and depression that negatively impact their overall health and wellbeing.Interviews were conducted with 22 Alaska Native caregivers for Alaska Natives with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders in rural and urban communities across Alaska.Interviews lasted approximately 60 min and were transcribed verbatim.We examined the caregivers' experiences of ADRD and the unexpected blessings associated with being a caregiver.Alaska Native caregivers shared the challenges associated with caregiving duties, and the lack of education, awareness, and available resources exacerbated their stress and challenges.As their family member experienced changes related to the ADRD, the blessings took different forms and served different purposes.Spending more time with their family member, remembering family history, engaging in generative behaviors, and strengthening intergenerational relationships were the most frequently discussed blessings.Focusing on these blessings enabled caregivers to continue to find meaning in this role and carry on their cultural values and traditions.This study shifts the focus of caregiving research to highlight the unexpected blessings.The focus on strengths of caregiving and sharing these stories has the potential to provide current and future caregivers to step into this role with a different perspective, or at least not just hear of the challenges and barriers associated with ADRD caregiving.

FINANCIAL EXPLOITATION AND MENTAL HEALTH OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: THE MODERATING ROLE OF POSTTRAUMATIC SYMPTOMS
Gali Weissberger 1 , Moshe Bensimon 2 , and Amit Shrira 1 , 1. Bar Ilan University,Ramat Gan,HaMerkaz,Israel,Ramat Gan,Tel Aviv,Israel Financial exploitation (FE) is associated with devastating emotional, health, and economic consequences.We examined whether anxiety and depressive symptoms associated with self-reported history of financial exploitation (FE) are more pronounced amongst Holocaust survivors, especially those with high-level posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.A community-based cohort of 137 Israeli older adults born prior to 1945 were included in the study sample.Holocaust survivors (n = 61) were participants who reported living in a European country occupied or dominated by Nazi or pro-Nazi regimes between 1939-1945.Groups were further subdivided into survivors with low or high levels of PTSD symptoms (≥31 on the PTSD Checklist; PCL-5).Questionnaires assessed FE history, posttraumatic symptoms (PCL-5), depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), and anxiety (GAD-7).Age, education, self-rated health, and non-Holocaust lifetime adversity were also measured and included as covariates.Hierarchical linear regression models revealed that relationships between FE and depressive and anxiety symptoms were significant only among survivors (p = 0.005 and p = 0.008, respectively).The interaction between PTSD symptom level group and FE was also significant for both depressive (p = 0.007) and anxiety (p = 0.012) symptoms, such that survivors with PTSD who reported FE had significantly greater symptoms of depression and anxiety compared to all other groups.Findings suggest that the experience of FE may be particularly impactful amongst survivors who continue to struggle with posttraumatic symptoms related to the Holocaust.Future studies may consider examining whether findings are relevant to other groups with PTSD.Family caregiving is the crucial informal care resource to buffer the associated disease burden.Research in this field has focused on promoting effective adaptation of family caregivers of persons with dementia (PWD) by ameliorating their caregiving burden.Little attention is placed on positive aspects of caregiving (PAC).PAC refers to the extent to which caregiving experience is appraised as enriching to one's life, and promoting uplift, personal growth and gratification.This mixed-method study investigated how PAC evolved from the encounter of the family caregivers of PWD.Based on the research evidence about how PAC is shaped, an integrated theoretical model combining the stress coping and existential paradigms were hypothesized to explain the evolvement of PAC.A mixed-method longitudinal study was conducted, and 403 family caregivers of PWD were invited to respond on validated measure for active dementia management

POSITIVE ASPECTS OF DEMENTIA CAREGIVING EVOLVE FROM AN INTEGRATIVE STRESS COPING AND EXISTENTIALISM PARADIGMS Doris
S.F.Yu 1 , and Sheung Tak Cheng 2 , 1.The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2. The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong